


A Travesty of a Rescue

by mandalora



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Dishonored (Video Games), Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: (except one), (sorry jess), Alternate Universe - Fusion, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Gen, M/M, Pre-Relationship, That’s it that’s all it is, and of course some good old mutual corvodaud ass whooping, dishonored in westeros, fight to the death? more like fight to the dad, though slightly altered and with no assassinations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-19
Updated: 2020-06-19
Packaged: 2021-03-04 00:35:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24804799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mandalora/pseuds/mandalora
Summary: A Faceless Man is hired to kill the Lady Regnant of the Seven Kingdoms. The deed is done; however, no one anticipated the consequent disappearance of the ten-year-old princess.Bound by duty to his late queen, the publicly dismissed Lord Commander of the Queensguard sets off to find and bring Lady Emily home before anyone else can get their hands on her.
Relationships: Corvo Attano/Daud, Daud & Emily Kaldwin
Comments: 8
Kudos: 29





	A Travesty of a Rescue

**Author's Note:**

> Extremely self-indulgent AU where Daud and Emily go on an Arya & the Hound-esque road trip, and Corvo fills in the role of Brienne i.e. chases them down and gladly beats the shit out of Daud (and gets some in return) in the greatest ever custody battle.
> 
> I also have a huge soft spot for AUs where Corvo, while still a father figure, isn’t Emily’s biological dad, so that’s a thing here as well.
> 
> (Burrows now gets an unnamed family because you gotta have the Lannisters in one form or another, right? :DDD)
> 
> Anyway! This is pretty fast paced and broad strokes. All in all, I had a grand old time here, and hope you do as well!

With the Queen Jessamine I Kaldwin cold in her bed and her daughter’s eyes wide and wild on him, Daud concluded with finality that he got in too deep.

In seconds, before the girl could scream for help, he was on the other side of the bedchamber. She thrashed and jerked in his grip, repeatedly crying something strained and disyllabic in a voice muffled against his hand, and Daud pressed it ever tighter to her face lest she try and bite him.

“If you want to live,” he hissed in her ear, vowing not to let a soul touch a hair on her head, “you’ll shut up and be still.”

Smart enough to obey fear, the girl settled down.

Cursing himself and the god, Daud brought his eyes back to his handiwork and took in the scene. The queen still as a taxidermy on the bed, red prick of a poison dart a stark, unnatural contrast against the pallid skin of her neck. A murder staged to look as just that, to justify the inevitable reassessment and overhaul of the Queensguard and council.

The princess so tiny in his arms, a leaf trembling in the wind. Daud clenched his teeth so strongly his gums ached.

_Oh, kid, you weren’t meant to see this._

Thoughts flew a thousand paces a second. Damn the rules. Damn the rest of the payment. Half of the price had been paid already, which in and of itself was more than anything the guild had collected for any one contract to date. Let the Burrowses keep their gold, as consolation for their bad luck. Daud’s list of qualifications earned him encouraging reputation only as his loss of favor with the Many-Faced God was conveniently left out of it.

With long-brewing thoughts at last taking shape, definitively free from vows and bounds, he suddenly knew what to do. And as far as the gold went, well... There was only ever one coin he had need of.

“Put this on,” he whispered sharply, unclasping his cloak and wrapping it around the girl, right atop her nightgown, pulling it over her head for lack of a hood. The rough motions worked to pull her out of a trance, tear her eyes off her dead mother. “Keep your head down and covered, and your mouth shut. You try to run, you scream for help, you make eye contact with anyone—you’ll be dead before you can blink. That clear?”

Damn the rules. Damn the guild. Damn the politics. There was no way in all hells he was leaving the girl with these people. 

Wide, glassy eyes, trembling lips. She didn’t cry. She didn’t panic. Although frightened, she merely looked at him with utter understanding, with both despair and anger as scorching as a thousand suns, and it took Daud’s all to keep his face from twisting into a grimace of apologetic pity.

_I’m sorry, kid. It’s for your own good._

Princess Emily Kaldwin merely nodded, curt and stiff, and drew a shaky breath.

“Where are you taking me?” she croaked, and Daud had never hated himself so much in his life.

It was inevitable, he told himself. The queen had been a goner regardless of his involvement. Another would have taken the contract, another would have done the job.

It didn’t make him feel any better.

Sucking in the air through his teeth, Daud forced himself to hold the girl’s stare as he pulled the cloak tighter over her head.

“The Free City of Braavos,” after a moment, he told her on the exhale. He owed her that much.

*

With grief and rage almost too great to comprehend, Corvo was beside himself.

The bells had rung at dawnbreak, and then everything became a blur. Queen Jessamine found dead in her bed—poison, the Grand Maester determined. Princess Emily missing. Ser Geoff, who had stood vigil at the royal chambers’ doors that night, questioned and deemed completely unaware of any intruders.

Lord Hiram Burrows, hitherto Queen’s Hand and henceforth named Protector of the Realm to rule as regent until the heiress return to the safety of the Keep and come of age, couldn’t have more clearly enjoyed every second of watching him doff his white cloak.

 _You can’t do this,_ Corvo had yelled over the shocked jabbering filling the throne room, Geoff’s worried eyes a great weight on his frame. _The Queensguard vows are taken for life—_

 _Not anymore, I’m afraid,_ the newly-appointed Regent had shot back. _The queen’s daughter is missing, the queen herself is dead. You and your men failed her. You will not fail me, or Lady Emily, as well._

 _Ser Corvo Attano,_ the decree had struck him with all the force of a death sentence, _you are hereby relieved of your service as Lord Commander of the Queensguard._

It was then when Corvo knew who had murdered his queen.

The Regent stared back from atop the dais with as much solemn gravity as his conscience allowed him to fabricate, failing miserably to conceal the delight of basking in his newfound freedom. Having enough decency, at least, to leave the Throne untouched, flanked by the remaining small council—his henchmen, his rats, never the queen’s—he stood, the decision final and resolute in the set of his mouth, the betrayal fervid in his eyes.

Corvo wanted to point fingers and spit accusations. He had half a mind to sneak into Lord Hiram’s bedchamber the very next night and put a blade to his throat and demand the name of the shadow that had handed the Realm to him on a silver platter. Drag him out of bed by his hook nose and ring the Red Keep awake and force the confession out of him in this very throne room, in this very spot he dared stand now. And bedamn his own name—Corvo cared not if his own head on a spike was the only means of serving justice. In the name of the late Jessamine, so be it. Lord Hiram was no king of his.

Perhaps, he thought then, he would have done all that and more, if not for little princess Emily. So long as she drew breath, so long as the queen’s legacy lived on, Corvo had a duty to fulfill.

So he spun on his heel and looked no one in the eye as the crowd parted to clear for him the road of shame.

Later that day he gathered maps and waterskins and coin enough for an urgent journey, tore off his white cloak, swapped his armor from gold to plain. The sword, a gift from his queen, he left—“Pathmaker,” her kindred had called it, a marvel of Valyrian steel passed down through generations.

Merely in his safekeeping until death relieve him of his charge, it would have returned to the rightful possession of Emily I Kaldwin, and she would have visited him at his deathbed and looked upon him one last time with tenderness and pride, thanking him for the many years of service to herself and her mother, who would have passed by then from old age in peace.

But those plans had been foiled. Corvo stood a minute in his chambers, eyes and teeth clenched, grip iron and white-knuckled on the hilt of the sword in its scabbard. The ringing of the Great Sept’s seven bells reached him through the open windows, and Corvo listened duly to this voice of blame.

If he still had any worth, he told himself once more, then his purpose lay with the late queen’s daughter. If he still had any worth he would find her and bring her home.

He would think later on what to do about Lord Hiram and the political climate of said home.

The gates of the city had been barred, every harbormaster questioned and every ship seized, every street and corner upturned thrice in search of the missing girl. There was no more point in staying, for it was clear that whoever had taken her had left on horseback in the night.

They couldn’t have gotten far.

Before leaving the city, however, Corvo stopped at the Great Sept. An especially devout man he was not, but nonetheless, making use of the calm before the grand commencement of funeral proceedings, he took a moment to say his prayers. A candle for the Father, may he judge Lord Hiram justly. Another for the Stranger, may he lead Jessamine to the other world untroubled. And the last two—for the Crone, to light the way to Emily, and for the Maiden, to lend her courage and keep her safe.

With that done, Corvo wasted no more time. He mounted his gelding and was on his way.

*

Perched uncomfortably on the withers of a horse, with barely enough room, Emily rode with the man that had killed her mother.

Daud, he’d said he was called. It had taken him half a minute to say when she asked. It was almost as if he’d been trying to remember his own name, although how could he forget in the first place?

Earlier that night, as soon as they were out of the Red Keep and a good distance away, he had shoved her into an alley and sawed through her hair with his dagger until there was not much left but tufts and wisps. _You’re a boy now,_ he’d said. _Your name’s Emil. You know nothing of the royal family or the missing princess, you don’t even know who that is. You understand me?_ She had nodded and sniffled, tears drying in her eyes even before they could drop for fear of angering the man with her crying.

Later, leagues from King’s Landing, he’d gotten her boy clothes and food.

Even this far away Emily could hear the weeping bells of the Great Sept of Baelor. The sound of a city in mourning. The queen was gone. 

And her killer was on the loose with her daughter.

“I need to do something,” said Daud quietly after hours of silence. “Something strange. I just want to warn you first.”

His voice was deep and rough, and he had an accent, like Corvo. A similar one, even, although stronger.

Emily bit down on her lip. She missed Corvo. She missed him very much.

She missed her lady mother, as well, but she was dead now.

Corvo hadn’t been there to protect her. That was his job, so where had he been? And where was he now? _Looking for me,_ Emily assured herself. She desperately wanted to think so. He wouldn’t leave her.

She said nothing, only continued to stare blankly ahead. They were taking the goldroad west—a way off the main road along the Blackwater, in case the gold cloaks were looking for them, she guessed.

Daud didn’t say much about how they were getting to Braavos and when, and Emily did not want to ask. She didn’t want to speak with him at all. 

When he let go of the reins with his one gloved hand, however, she tightened her grip on the horse’s mane and turned to watch what he was about to do.

At once, her mouth dropped open.

Forehead to chin, Daud passed his hand over his face, and with this motion his appearance changed. His beard vanished. His eyes turned grey, his hair darker and shorter, his skin a tad more tan on the features stronger than prior. Practically kissing the outer corner of an eye, a long gash of a scar now trailed down the right side of his face.

For a moment after the transformation, Daud held Emily’s stare and, before returning his eyes to the road, gave her a tiny nod.

“How did you do that?!”

For a beat, he was silent. “A trick.”

“Magic!”

“Of sorts. Partly.”

Wide-eyed, Emily continued staring, with all her might trying to comprehend what she’d just seen. Daud’s eyes—were they really? Or were they someone else’s?—flicked back to her a couple of times, as if he wasn’t comfortable with the attention. “You can change your appearance?” Emily blurted. “Whose face is this one?”

Daud tugged on the reins to keep the horse heading straight. “My own.” 

_How very useful, this trick._ Emily imagined herself playing this joke on Corvo, turning into his lookalike and surprising him with his own face. If only she’d been able. “Is it hard? Can you look like me? Can you do it now?”

A hint of a chuckle rumbled in Daud’s throat. “It’s not that simple, I’m afraid.”

“No? Then how did you do it? Who was that man, the one you looked like before?”

“That man,” he said, and suddenly there was no more mirth at his lips, “is long dead.”

As if washed away by an icy surge, the excitement vanished, and to its place returned disdain and fright.

Emily closed her mouth, tightened her lips, and turned away to bring her eyes back to the road. 

*

Before he would commit fully to a certain direction, Corvo quickly ran through the facts in his mind. 

He cursed the slow going of investigations and matters of court, for in a couple hours’ time the sun would start inclining west. There was hardly anything to be done in the night, but at least he had some daylight on his side still.

In any case, the abductor couldn’t ride with no rest either, and with a child at that.

Corvo pondered the events of the morning. It must have been an assassin of great skill, no doubt, to avoid all the gold cloak patrols and even slip past the sights of one of the best knights of the Queensguard. It was impossible to enter the royal chambers through the windows, unless one could shapeshift into a raven and fly in effortlessly on the draft of wind.

It was no news to Corvo that Lord Hiram had disagreed with the queen and had distrusted her, had even despised her. Hungry for any and all control, with the master of coin in his pocket, he would have shown no hesitation in spending unreasonable amounts of gold on the unattainable, the best of the best, the virtual guarantee of the contract’s eventual and inevitable execution.

Corvo grit his teeth. There was only one sect of assassins to fit that description—far away, from across the Narrow Sea. 

Ironic how his own homeland would come to haunt him so.

Of course, the assassin wasn’t stupid enough to try to leave out of King’s Landing’s ports. With a swift tug on the reins, Corvo started on the Rosby road.

If the assassin was indeed headed to Gulltown like Corvo was predicting, he’d do better in taking the kingsroad. He did not expect to find the assassin on it, as the man was likely to take detours in hopes of throwing pursuers off course, but there was a good chance that Corvo could cut him off.

However, while Gulltown was indeed convenient to get lost in, it was not the only place to send out ships bound for northeast. Corvo clenched his jaw at the thought. The long route along the coast it was—if he had to check every port town, every harbor lying between King’s Landing and Gulltown, so be it.

No one said this was going to be easy.

*

Unlike the third night, which they had spent at an inn, on the fourth Emily had to sleep on the ground again. Daud had given her his bedroll and had been sleeping on his cloak himself.

The fifth night was the same. They’d finished a rabbit for dinner and Emily settled to turn in for the night, scooting closer to the heat.

She couldn’t sleep, however, not right away—and so she lay on her side and kept her eyes on Daud’s form as he sat and added twigs to the fire. 

The licks of flame danced and so did the light on his face. He stared at nothing in particular, occasionally biting on the insides of his cheeks as if in deep thought.

“I’m sorry I threatened you,” he said suddenly. “Back in King’s Landing. I’m sorry if I scared you. I’m not going to hurt you. I had to make sure you complied.”

Emily looked at him, long and hard, gaze steady.

_But if you needed me to comply, you must have meant it._

“Why?” she asked. “Why did you take me?” 

The question fell like a great burden on his shoulders. He heaved a sigh, closed his eyes for a long moment before focusing them once again on the piece of twig in his hands he’d been fiddling with. “I… I couldn’t leave you there. It was going to get dangerous for you.”

“Why, because you murdered my mother?”

The accusation didn’t seem to hurt him much more than his thoughts already had. He merely tightened his lips, flitted his eyes over the fire and the ground before it, and then brought them over to Emily’s. 

Just for a moment. He broke eye contact soon after.

“Yes,” he said. He took to staring into the flames again. “Because I murdered your mother.”

For a long time, they said nothing, letting the fire’s crackle and the ringing of cicadas and the occasional hoot of an owl thread through the quiet of night.

“Why did you do it, then?” later, Emily gave voice.

Daud only took a couple moments to come up with an answer. “I was paid to.”

“By whom?”

“Hiram Burrows.”

 _The Hand, Lord Hiram._ Emily frowned. She didn’t know why exactly he would want to have his queen killed, but, for some reason, the notion did not surprise her much. She couldn’t quite explain why, but the name sparked a visceral aversion somewhere within her.

“Lord Hiram is a bad man,” she quietly said. “I just know. I’ve felt it.”

Daud’s gaze she met with grimness. She’d seen how that man held himself at court, how he whispered with Lord Thaddeus when he thought no one was looking. She’d seen how he argued with her mother the queen and how her lips pressed into a thin line as she dismissed him. How he often leered at Corvo in distaste behind his back.

Emily’s brows drew even closer together at the memories. “But why would he want her dead? He wouldn’t get the throne. There’s still me. I should be queen now.”

“But you aren’t yet of age.”

“Oh.”

She didn’t think of that.

“And that’s precisely the point,” Daud went on. “Burrows has no real claim to the Iron Throne, but should you be orphaned now, he would assume the role of Regent. Your youth is crucial—this way, he’d have the time to rule and simultaneously groom you, influence you so that you would continue to listen to him and do as he says even when you retake the throne, and long after.

“In order to do that, in order to secure his control over the crown for many years to come, he’d need your mother out of the way. With her, you were untouchable.”

Emily pondered the words awhile. 

Despicable. She loathed to hear it. No, she would not be used by that baldheaded snake.

Instead of voicing her scorn, however, she asked, “Aren’t you from Braavos?” 

Daud nodded.

_Like Corvo, then._

“Then how do you know all this?”

A brief huff from him. “People like me, we… In order to be adept in my line of work, one must be knowledgeable in such affairs.”

“Your line of work.” Emily weighed the words on her tongue. “You’re an assassin.”

Daud confirmed with another, slower nod.

“And you worked with Lord Hiram. You helped him.”

His brows drew together, and despite the dark, in his eyes Emily saw regret.

“Yes.” His voice was quiet. “I did.”

With another pause heavy in the air, Emily studied his profile. “Then why did you take me away, if he needs me?”

Ages passed before he replied. Not for not knowing how to answer, Emily didn’t think—rather, it felt like he was trying intensely to bring himself to do so.

“I realized my mistake,” he said, quiet, in a rasp of a voice. Another pause, another minute of him struggling with the tension in his body, and then he brought his eyes to hers. He slowed his words, made room to funnel in the gravity of their meaning. “I should not have killed your mother, my lady. There’s no way I can mend this, regret can’t change what I did. But, for what it’s worth, if it’s even worth anything—I am sorry.”

For once he didn’t pull away his stare, and Emily held it in turn. She wasn’t sure how the apology made her feel.

“Did Lord Hiram tell you of his plans, when he hired you?” she asked.

“No, not all of them,” said Daud slowly. “But it was easy to guess the rest.”

“So you knew.”

He bit the inside of his cheek. “Yes.”

“You knew and you killed her anyway.”

Brow and mouth tense, he lowered his eyelids. As if it pained him to hear this and even think of it. 

“I did,” he muttered. “And I despise myself for it.” Once more, he met her stare. “I brought all this upon you. I brought this danger on yourself, I nearly handed you over to Burrows.” Another pause, another silence heavy with regret. “With the small council on his side, there is nothing good for you in the capital anymore. I made it so, and that’s unforgivable. But Braavos is a great city, a free city, a place of many bright futures and opportunities, and if I can foil Burrows’s plans, if I can give you a chance to control your own life, then I will do all that in a heartbeat. Yes, Burrows has the throne now, but he doesn’t have you. I won’t force you to come with me. I will give you a choice. Say the word and we’ll turn back at daybreak—but trust me when I say that a city like King’s Landing is no place for a bright young girl.”

For a long minute, or maybe more, Emily mulled over the words, inspecting them from all sides, hearing their ring. She sighed, breath heavy with thought, and envisioned the Red Keep. She envisioned Lord Hiram’s nasty smirks, Lord Thaddeus’s ugly bloated frowns, Lady Waverly’s contrived, slippery smiles. Lord Custis and Lord Morgan and Ser Farley and all the rest, all the surly men and gossiping women at court whom Emily did not want to see for a minute more, not one bit.

That was easy enough to decide, however, there was one thing she’d regret. 

“Should’ve taken Corvo with us,” she muttered, settling into a more comfortable position on the bedroll.

A surge of relief washed over Daud’s eyes for a brief moment, and then he frowned slightly in thought. 

“Corvo… Corvo,” he tasted the name on his tongue as if in an attempt to remember. “Ah—Attano? Lord Commander of the Queensguard, is it?”

That was only secondary. “He’s my friend,” Emily said, and suddenly remembered how much she missed him. Her brow twitched under the strain of sorrow. “My best friend.”

_My only friend._

Daud did not reply. He drew out a long, quiet breath, and turned his eyes back to the fire.

*

“Why poison?” Emily asked. 

It had been nearly a fortnight since they’d left King’s Landing behind, and, riding from dawn to dusk with frequent breaks due to the rocky terrain, they were now a little over halfway to Stoney Sept. Daud kept his eyes on the road over the girl’s head, and had fallen into a musing when the question stirred him back to full awareness.

“Hm? Ah—right.”

Emily hadn’t spoken of her mother much. She’d asked a few questions here and there, about how he managed to sneak into the Red Keep, about his guild, about the Free Cities. She was a smart girl. Educated. Daud had grown to appreciate their occasional talk, whenever she spoke out on behalf of her curiosity, or gave commentary on the places they passed. 

He did not fail to take notice of the interest she showed in his trade.

The question hung in the air for a beat while Daud thought how best to answer.

At a young age like that, it was easy to dismiss the weight of death. Easy to overlook the value of human life.

Though, really, who was he to talk?

Why poison, she asked. _Because it’s clean,_ he would have told anyone else.

“Because it’s painless,” he said instead. “This kind, at least. Your mother didn’t feel a thing. She didn’t even wake.”

Emily did not reply, only gave a short little hum.

“Good,” she said after all, after a minute. “That’s good.”

Daud let out a silent sigh of relief.

“Do you kill everyone that way?”

And immediately after, his breath drew short.

“No,” he said, brow tense with caution.

“Why not?”

If he’d had the audacity to kidnap her and bring her along, then he might as well respect and indulge her inquiries. It was the least he could do.

But, really, he shouldn’t be telling her these things.

“Because it depends on the contract,” he said, carefully choosing the words. “Most occasions, it’s best to make the death look like an accident. That way it’s nearly impossible to trace it back to the client—or the assassin.”

Another little hum from Emily, as if she was giving the words careful consideration. “What about this case, then? Couldn’t have my mother died in an ‘accident?’”

“The queen’s death had to look like murder so that Burrows would have someone to blame.”

“Hm. Why?”

“So that he would have more control over the court. Use the tragedy to his advantage, have an excuse to publicly attack somebody he doesn’t favor, perhaps.”

For a long moment, silence.

“I see,” said Emily, slow and quiet, in an impression of having arrived at some conclusion on her own.

The questions ceased, though, and Daud was glad of that.

*

Corvo was running out of assurance.

In its place grew anger.

Duskendale. Rook’s Rest. The damn smuggler cove at the Whispers. His horse grew wearier with each passing day, needed more and more breaks with how much his rider pushed him, and Corvo wanted to tear out his mane, or his own hair, or both.

He lost count of how many dock workers he’d asked and bribed and threatened, all to no avail. He grew sick of the reiterated words that spilled from his tongue every time he set foot in an inn— _have you seen a girl come through here, a kid, ten years of age, thin, about this tall, black of hair— no, I don’t know how she’s dressed— no, I don’t know who she’s with, a man perhaps, no, I don’t know what he looks like._

At a certain point, the news spread.

“Seen nothing of the sort, but might it be the princess you’re after?” asked the inkeep of the establishment on the road between the Whispers and the Dyre Den.

Sweat broke out on the back of Corvo’s neck. Who knew where the Burrowses had spies. 

“No,” he assured the woman. “Not the princess.”

He’d be damned if anyone got to her before he did. 

He’d be damned if he let her get dragged back into the lions’ den, for the Burrowses to sink their claws into. No. Not on his watch. And to the seven hells with the Regent and what he had to say about it. 

Emily was going home, and so long as Corvo was around, no one would get to her. 

The sun had set, the gelding had been stabled for the night, and Corvo allowed himself to catch his breath over a horn of ale. He let his leaden eyelids fall closed, raked his knuckles through the sprouting growth on his face. It had been more than a week since he last put a knife to his jaw, and the next daybreak would be a good time to revisit the matter.

He no longer knew, frankly, if he was on the right track. Whether he was wasting time by checking all along the coast, whether the assassin with Emily in tow had already made three-quarters of the way to Gulltown, or any other port in that area.

He refused to even consider the possibility of Emily being killed or otherwise hurt. In consequence, Corvo didn’t know why a Faceless Man would kidnap a child—or anyone, for that matter. These assassins had a creed; a life for their god, no more and no less. He couldn’t imagine Emily being taken to anywhere in Westeros, delivered to some lord for reason unknown. It could have been a possibility if the man in question had been a common sellsword, however this wasn’t the case. Corvo felt this with his every instinct.

One thing that brought him solace was that the assassin’s destination of Braavos was practically a guarantee. Why Emily was being dragged along—that was a different matter entirely, one he wasn’t nearly mentally prepared enough to dig into.

And not one of these thoughts brought ease to the fact that he might well be leading a pointless chase, already having lost three weeks he could have spent on hunting down the murderer—had he taken the kingsroad north.

But there was no way of knowing. The killer could be on his way through the Vale by now. He could have left out of one of the ports Corvo had already passed, and he might not have checked well enough to know. Hells, he could already be long at sea, on the way to Braavos.

Well, Corvo thought, if that was the case... It was too bad for the Faceless Man, then, because he’d follow the fucker to the edge of the world.

*

Four weeks, and four men dead.

 _Ain’t that the Kaldwin girl?_ the outlaw’s cry had rung out by the Red Fork’s bank. His three buddies had also thought it a fine idea to join in collecting the bounty.

 _Don’t let them take me,_ Emily had blurted under her breath, the words a fascinating blend of genuine, pleading fear and a commanding quality of a rightful queen. Unnecessary instruction, that was, as Daud had already begun to dismount.

Emily, on the other hand, didn’t even need to budge—it took Daud longer to clean his sword of blood than to cut through the lot of them.

 _Are you a god,_ the creed echoed in his temples then, _to choose who is to live and die?_

 _All men must die,_ Daud’s thoughts shot back with ridicule. _Shush. I’m done with you._

Emily’s eyes were all astonishment and awe, wide and bright. She thought better than to speak, and rightly so. Daud resolved to take her smile as relief, rather than morbid fascination.

“I want a horse of my own,” she later said, sudden and unbidden.

Daud indulged his curiosity, though did not bother to rid his tone of its typical sternness. “Where’d that come from?”

“Next time we’re attacked,” she replied after a moment of thought, “I’d be able to run. And you would just catch up with me on this mare when it’s done. I can’t defend myself yet, right? This way I’d still have options.”

Daud’s jaw tightened. “You wouldn’t need to run. And there’s no guarantee of more attacks.”

“But what if—”

“No ‘ifs.’ You saw me cut down those men, did you not?”

He loathed to resort to this, but—

Emily did not take her eyes off the road; just nodded twice.

—he was good at killing and that was simply a fact.

“Did you feel like you were in danger?”

Still looking straight ahead, Emily shook her head.

“Then what’s this about?”

He didn’t even need to see her face to catch the reddening of her ears’ tips.

“I just… want a horse, that’s all,” Emily mumbled after a moment or two.

Daud sighed, the sound turning into a soft chuckle.

“Can you even ride?”

“Of course I can ride,” she said with a tinge of offense, and then added proudly, “I was taught by the best.”

At once, Daud decided with amusement that that was something he would like to see.

*

On their way out of Riverrun, he bought her a pony. Emily named him Sparrow, and beamed as hoofs clip-clopped beneath her in the rhythm of a lively canter.

“See?” she blurted as she sent Sparrow running in circles around Daud’s leisurely-walking mare. “Now I can help!”

Daud smirked, eyes trailing after her whenever she’d pop up in his cone of vision, thinking that he wished she didn’t feel the need to come up with reasons of logic for all her wants.

*

“Remember how you changed your face, back then, a few weeks ago?” Emily finally gathered the courage to ask. It felt queer, and she didn’t know why. 

Daud arched an eyebrow, eyes steady on the road. “Of course.”

Hoping in vain for him to begin to talk about it unprompted, Emily suffered through the following silence. “You haven’t talked about it.”

“No,” he agreed. “Should I have?”

“How do you do it?”

Daud thought a moment. “It’s a very complicated process.”

Naturally. That was all grown-ups ever said. “Is it something just you can do, or are the others in your guild like this as well?”

“It is a skill of our sect.”

“Can anyone learn it?”

“It’s possible.”

Emily bit down on her cheek. 

“…Can I learn it?”

Daud turned his head slightly to watch her, his gaze pinning. “Now why would you want such a thing?”

Emily did not return his stare, and the attention made her shift in her saddle. She thought about Lord Hiram, Lord Thaddeus, the Pendleton twins. Of the first there was no question, but as for the latter three… She‘d bet there was something those weasels were guilty of. “Well… you know. It might be useful."

“It’s a dangerous practice,” Daud said, and the phrase spelled disallowance in and of itself. “You’d need a better reason than that.”

Emily said nothing, and they spoke of this no further.

*

“Now that you mention it,” said the owner of the inn at the crossroads, scratching idly at the side of his jaw in thought, “I did see some kid here the other day. Think it was a lassie, but not quite sure. Short hair, dark, as you say. Was a man with ‘er. Big fella, had this nasty scar.” He waved two fingers loosely up and down the right side of his face in demonstration.

Corvo had to remind himself to breathe.

“When?” he barked heedlessly. “When exactly did you see them?”

“Just two days ago or so.” Corvo could not believe his luck. “Stopped for a meal at midday, sat and ate all friendly-like. Then left.”

 _Friendly-like_ didn’t sound right. Still, it was better, much better than nothing. “Left where?”

“Well, I don’t know, I didn’t watch ‘em go.”

Fine. That was good enough. Corvo had an idea, anyway. “Thank you,” he rasped for lack of air in his lungs, and clapped the man on the shoulder, probably harder than he meant. _“Thank you.”_

He had never mounted faster in his life. 

Pulse hammering in his throat, teeth clenched, he broke into a gallop due east.

*

In the mountains, somewhere along the way toward the town of Saltpans, for the first time since before the death of her mother, Emily heard her name being called by someone other than Daud.

Perhaps they were getting sloppy, stayed too close to the road. Perhaps they didn’t think they’d be followed all the way out here. And so, here they were, spotted—Daud’s mare reared slightly as he tugged her into an abrupt stopping turn; Emily also brought Sparrow to a halt as she whipped her head around in search of the sound’s source.

_“Emily!”_

This time, with the voice closer and clearer, she recognized it. 

“Corvo,” she breathed, catching Daud’s apprehensive gaze. “It’s Corvo!”

Gods, he found her. She wouldn’t have to leave him after all. 

“Corvo!” she screamed back, turned around fully once more, and finally saw him.

Saw him charging straight at Daud.

*

The terrain was shit, the horses were a mess.

“Get the fuck away from her,” Corvo roared with the rapidly closing distance. The man’s horse freaked at the sudden, uncomfortable proximity; before Corvo could land a strike, it neighed and bucked and scrambled away over the rocks.

Emily was on a horse of her own. Good. If the man truly needed her, he wouldn’t be getting far.

Ignoring and hardly even hearing Emily’s cries, Corvo gave chase. 

The man broke ahead and managed to burst forth to considerable distance. He reached flatter ground first, but then he rode out farther, slowed his horse and spun it fully around.

Wary and irate, with a dozen yards laid out between them, Corvo also brought his gelding to a halt.

Leveling the playing field, the man drew his steel.

Corvo’s snarl was all teeth.

“Is that Westerosi armor I see?” he flung out in Braavosi. “You’re a long way from home, aren’t you, Faceless?”

The man threw up his brows, smirked, and replied in the same tongue, “Could say the same about you, Lord Commander.”

Corvo’s rousing reply was cut by the appearance of Emily in his periphery, a few yards away.

“Emily,” he yelled with warning in the Common Tongue, eyes trained hawkishly on the man, “stay back.”

She cried in turn, “Corvo, wait—”

“Let’s keep the girl out of this,” the man continued in their native speech.

Corvo barked out a laugh. “Is that what you’ve been doing these past couple months? Keeping her out of this?”

“Corvo, no! Stop! Daud, don’t hurt him!”

Corvo whipped his head from Emily to the bastard named Daud and back, demanding an explanation with his glare alone. “What’s the meaning of this?”

Daud’s horse began pacing silghtly, and he didn’t seem to bother with stopping the movements, just kept them fairly contained.

“Emily’s going to Braavos,” he said, slow yet matter-of-fact, also switching to the Common Tongue.

How dare he call her by name.

“Oh, is she, now?”

“Corvo, it’s okay—”

“Emily, sweetling, I don’t know what this man told you, but now he must die.”

“No—”

“We’re going home.”

“No!”

“Listen to the kid,” Daud growled.

“Like hells I’ll listen to her when you’ve filled her head with bullshit.”

“Language.”

Corvo threw down the reins. “Get off your damn horse and face me like a man.”

Daud sneered. “Picked up some of that highborn chivalry in the capital over the years, I see. Do you even remember how to fight?”

“I’m more than happy to demonstrate.”

 _“No,”_ Emily cut in. “No demonstrations. You two stay right where you are.”

The demand fell on deaf ears. 

“Here’s what’s going to happen,” said Corvo and licked his dried lips. “You,” he raised his sword to point, “are going to answer for your crimes, and... Well, the rest doesn’t concern you.”

Daud didn’t bat an eye. “It concerns the girl.”

“Who in the seven hells are you to speak? You popped up out of nowhere and murdered her mother.”

 _Now_ Daud gave a slight wince. It sparked both anger and satisfaction in Corvo’s chest. “You murdered her mother the queen in cold blood—but no, that wasn’t enough. You had to go and pluck her out of her home, too.”

“Home,” Daud spat out the word, and Corvo couldn’t believe the audacity. “Better to be out on the road than in that snake pit.”

Snake pit. A good name for it, he must say.

“Emily,” Corvo hissed through his teeth, “listen to me. Everything will be alright. I’ll take you back home and it’ll all be—”

“No,” Emily whined. “I’m not going back there.”

“You don’t understand what you’re—”

“Corvo, please.” She might have begun crying. “I don’t want to. I hate it there. I hate everyone there. Come with us instead. Please.”

_Us. There’s an ‘us’ now._

“Emily, I know, trust me, I know it’s not the best place, but it’s safe—”

“Safe?” Daud barked. “Caught in the Burrowses’ clutches? That’s your definition of safety?”

The words slashed like a knife across naked flesh. “Don’t lecture me on matters of court—”

“She’ll be manipulated. Used. Played. Tossed around like a rag doll.”

 _I won’t let them,_ the words that had been brewing for the past few weeks threatened to bubble up to the surface, but only now was Corvo struck with the sheer stupidity of the sentiment. 

_If only, oh, if only you had that power._

He couldn’t hold in a wince. “No—”

“The nobles will sink their teeth into her and tear her apart—”

“You caused all this,” Corvo roared. “You made this mess. You dragged her into it.”

“Aye, I did.” Daud met him glare for burning glare, but in his words was grave sincerity. “And now I’m getting her out of it.”

Corvo didn’t remember who dismounted first. He didn’t remember who struck first. He barely even heard Emily’s cries.

*

Daud didn’t know how he even had the energy to rock his loosened tooth with his tongue. 

Well, he already lost two. Might as well hurry this one along.

 _Really, though,_ he thought, grimacing from the paralyzing pain, _teeth should be the least of my worries._

Ser Corvo Attano, similarly spread out on the ground a couple of yards away and groaning, didn’t seem to feel much better.

“You two done?!” 

Somewhere above, Emily came into view, her fists firm on her hips. Her lip was trembling, though, and her eyes gleamed with wet.

Another groan—some sort of mumble—from Corvo. Emily sniffled and rushed over to him, and Daud saw very vaguely in his periphery how she was helping him to sit up.

If that could be called sitting, anyway.

Not that he himself could do much better at the moment.

“Corvo.” Emily’s voice was so thin Daud almost didn’t recognize it—but maybe his ears were as swollen as his eye. She was crouching at Corvo’s side, such a small thing next to him, and he relieved her of the awkward attempts at avoiding contact with his possibly cracked ribs by pulling her himself into a careful, tentative embrace.

She mumbled something into his neck and he held her as well as he could, eyes fluttering closed, bloody fingers tangling into her matted strands.

“Please,” Daud made out her whispering after a time, “he’s alright. Please, don’t kill him.”

 _Yes, please don’t kill me,_ he snidely thought. The man was a menace. Though, maybe, not right now.

It felt like hours passed before he could move. Sitting up—and staying upright—had been torture.

“Neither of you is in fighting shape, now,” Emily chided whilst sewing up the wound in the junction between Daud’s neck and shoulder. She’d gathered the horses (which miraculously had not wandered off), made a fire, washed out and cauterized their worst cuts, and was now helping with stitching. “Who’s going to protect me?”

Corvo snorted, but it came out weak and half-hearted.

It was a shithole of a situation, naturally, and they all knew it.

They didn’t say much else for the remainder of the night, and sleep was welcome.

*

“Braavos, huh?” Corvo looked idly into the distance, sitting and holding a waterskin at his split lips.

“That’s right.” Daud hadn’t bothered to get up yet, and was just staring at the sky. The morning sun was gentle on the eyes.

Corvo let out something of a huff. 

“Never thought this would be how I’d return,” with obvious reluctance, he muttered under his breath.

Daud raised his head off the ground, at least as much as he was currently able. “Oh? Made up your mind, did you?”

Corvo shot a glance at the still-sleeping Emily. Then turned his head back into aimlessness. “Well, someone’s gotta keep her safe from your sorry arse.”

Daud snorted and dropped his head back down.

He was in great need of a morning nap.

**Author's Note:**

> Emily said fuck iron throne rights
> 
> *
> 
> By courtesy of lostsoul512, the offscreened fight scene:
> 
> _Corvo lunged. "Take that, ye dog!"_
> 
> _Daud dodged. "Avast!"_
> 
> _Emily screamed. "Please do not fight! I am but a wee lassy!"_
> 
> _Corvo made a terrible pun. Daud seized the opening to stab. Emily jumped between them, and her sheer love for her two dads deflected the blow._
> 
> _Everyone was surprised. Their rage subsided. "Lets go home," said Corvo. He dropped his sword._
> 
> _Daud wept. Everyone hugged. The world was happy._


End file.
